Energy Hubs and the Future Power Grid
Clean energy isn’t the hard part anymore — getting it where it needs to go is.
Wind and solar are now cheap and abundant, but the grids meant to carry them were built for a fossil-fuel world. The result is congestion: billions spent every year paying wind farms to switch off and fossil plants to fire up, while clean power goes to waste. In this article, Gabriella Gunarto argues that the fix isn’t just more wires — it’s smarter architecture.
Her proposal borrows a page from airports and ports: energy hubs arranged in a hub-and-spoke model that pool renewable generation, storage and cross-border trade at shared nodes. Drawing on live projects from the North Sea to Southeast Asia, she maps where these hubs could emerge — and why consultants are uniquely placed to turn grid congestion from a liability into a platform for growth.
About the author — Gabriella Gunarto
Gabriella is a strategy consultant at Skha (Indonesia) with a multidisciplinary background spanning banking, logistics and health technology. She has advised state-owned enterprises, government institutions and private-sector clients on strategic planning, cross-sector integration and complex transformation — and holds a growing interest in large-scale infrastructure, particularly grid congestion and power-system resilience.
The full paper works through the economics, the conceptual model, a preliminary global map of candidate hubs, and where the advisory opportunity lies.
Originally published in Cordence Young Professionals’ Network — The Insight Initiative — 1st Edition.
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